The Romantic Poets
Keats was one of the ‘big six’ Romantic Poets, the others being Shelley, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake and Byron.

A tenet of Romantic poetry is its focus on nature, on the supernatural and man’s insignificance in comparison to the natural world. It was a turbulent time when the Napoleonic Wars had not long ended and Europe was in a state of flux and unrest. In England the infamous Peterloo Massacre had occurred in August 1819, when cavalry charged into a crowd demonstrating against poor economic conditions and lack of parliamentary representation in the north of England..

Summary
“When I have fears that I may cease to be” is often considered to be one of Keats’s superlative sonnets, addressing his fear of death before his time and echoing Milton’s “Sonnet 19: When I Consider How My Light is Spent” while taking on its own distinct form.

The title is not capitalised because Keats did not give the poem a title. The convention is to quote the first line as a reference.

Keats wrote this in 1818, while nursing his brother Tom who was dying of tuberculosis. The poet would contract the disease and die in 1821. It therefore could be said that he was writing this while in the early stages of his own tragically premature death.

Structure
The poem is essentially in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet, though with modifications (For more on sonnets see below.) It is made up of three quatrains, that is groups of four lines with interlocking ABAB CDCD EFEF rhyme. The last two lines, the rhyming couplet GG, end the poem, forming a resolution.

The metrical rhythm is iambic pentameter, that is five iambs or metrical feet per line, where a iamb is one unstressed followed by one stressed syllable. For more on this see below. The poem is about the poet’s impending death, so the solemn pace is appropriate.

There is a caesura or break in line ten, so the poem doesn’t follow the strict sonnet template. This could be said to form the ‘turn’ or volta, introducing a change of perspective.

Language and Imagery
The voice is that of a speaker whom we can take to be the poet, using the first person singular pronoun. The mood is sombre, as it would be when contemplating impending death.

The references to ‘full ripen’d grain’ and ‘the shore of the wide world’ are typical of Keats and the Romantic poets, using imagery of the natural world to comment on human affairs. The capitalisation of ‘Love’ and ‘Fame’ is also characteristic, suggesting the essence of universal, abstract concepts.

As with all Keats' poetry the imagery is vivid and lush, appealing to all the senses.

About Sonnets
A sonnet is a poem which expresses a thought or idea and develops it, often cleverly and wittily.

The sonnet genre is often, although not always, about ideals or hypothetical situations. It reaches back to the Medieval Romances, where a woman is loved and idealised by a worshipping admirer. For example, Sir Philip Sydney in the Astrophil and Stella sonnet sequence wrote in this mode. Poems were circulated within groups of educated intellectuals and they did not necessarily reflect the poet’s true emotions, but were a form of intellectual showing-off! This may not have been true of all; it is a matter of academic debate today. It is generally believed, however, that Shakespeare’s sonnets were autobiographical.

Sonnets are made up of fourteen lines, each being ten syllables long. Its rhymes are arranged according to one of the following schemes:

• Italian, where eight lines consisting of two quatrains make up the first section of the sonnet, called an octave. This section will explore a problem or an idea. It is followed by the next section of six lines called a sestet, that forms the ‘answer’ or a counter-view. This style of sonnet is also sometimes called a Petrarchan sonnet.

• English, which comprises three quatrains, making twelve lines in total, followed by a rhyming couplet. They too explore an idea. The ‘answer’ or resolution comes in the final couplet. Shakespeare’s sonnets follow this pattern. Edmund Spenser’s sonnets are a variant.

At the break in the sonnet — in Italian after the first eight lines, in English after twelve lines — there is a ‘turn’ or volta, after which there will be a change or new perspective on the preceding idea.

Language
The metre usually chosen for sonnets is iambic pentameter, that is five iambs or metrical feet per line, where a iamb is one unstressed followed by one stressed syllable. The effect is stately and rhythmic, and usually (but not always) creates a solemn, dignified mood.